


Emerging Haywire

by Fly



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Action/Adventure, BAMF Cloud Strife, Canon - Original Game, Dark Comedy, Detective Noir, Drug Use, Fear and Loathing in Midgar, Gen, Hipsters, Midgar, Minigames, Original Flavor, Pastiche, Prequel, Spaghetti Western/Chanbara, Terrible Person Cloud Strife, Video Game Mechanics, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fly/pseuds/Fly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight days before the explosion of Mako Reactor no. 1, a stranger with a sword washes up in Sector 3, confused, penniless, and looking for work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. DAY 0

**Author's Note:**

> "This fic is inspired by "FINAL FANTASY VII: CRISIS CORE" but is based entirely on the original "FINAL FANTASY VII" for the PlayStation."
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> "You probably already knew that, but I don't want anyone to worry about it."  
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> "That goes for the original English translation too. Reading it might get a little rough here and there... But I believe in you."
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> "Oh yeah, oh yeah... If you haven't, please make sure to turn "show Creator's Style" in the menu to [ON]. I can't guarantee it will work otherwise..."  
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> "It might sound corny of me, but thank you for being here. Let's enjoy the nostalgia and make friends!"

The woman behind the scrap iron door couldn’t take her eyes off his sword.

“SOLDIER?” she said. Her right hand gripped onto the edge of her front door like she was holding a shield; she was reaching blindly for something with the other. “Already? But it’s all taken care of, they said I had another couple of months to get everything in order —”

“I’m not in SOLDIER,” he said.

The woman stared.

“Do I look like a SOLDIER to you?” he said, trying with a shaking hand to claw back his fringe of wet hair.

She looked at him hard.

“Yeah.”

He stood, thin and ragged on the lifeless Slum earth, trying to think of what he could do next, shivering. He felt like an actor unable to remember what his next line was. He was just about to walk off to try a different shanty when the woman’s hand flew to her mouth — 

“Oh my God, you’ve got blood on you. Are you hurt? What happened?”

He rubbed at his eyes with the soft side of his glove.

“There was an attack. Three gunmen. It’s someone else’s. I’m not hurt.”

“Do you have anyone to call?” She opened the door wider. Behind her yawned a dwelling full of clutter, lit with bare yellow bulbs. “I can get you a phone.”

“No,” he said.

“No friends in Midgar?”

“No,” he said again, trying again to move away, but his knees had locked underneath him and he couldn’t remember how to bend them again. Distant green lights streaked across his vision and the ground reared up at him, until he plunged his sword down and steadied himself against it. “I’m sorry, but I don’t…”

She opened the door and closed her hand around his wrist. Helpless, he looked across at her face.

“Come in before someone else finds you,” she told him.

“Yeah.”

The tip of his sword sparked as he dragged it over the raw metal edge of the door frame.

“Let me take that,” she said, grabbing the pommel and tilting the sword until it rested against the wall. Her hands on his sides, she led him over the plastic floor and helped him collapse onto her couch. Her voice was faint over the singing in his ears. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

He stared over the armrest of the couch, motionless. He had a feeling that if he opened his mouth to explain himself he’d only throw up or something.

“I’ll get you some water,” she told him. She paced over to the water butte in the corner, filled a mug and presented it to him. He looked down into it. The water was a deep amber-green.

“I’m not drinking that,” Cloud heard himself say.

The woman shook her head.

“It’s fine. It’s plate rain. It’s filtered, it’s fine.”

“No. It’s not fine. I’m not drinkin’ it.”

“Excuse me?”

Cloud grabbed at the edge of the couch, gathering himself up until he was leaning forward, pressing his stare into her eyes.

“I used to be a SOLDIER. First Class. I’ve survived things worse than anything you can imagine, and yet you can’t even give me any respect. I come to you on my knees and you tell me to drink piss and say it’s okay. I’d sooner join up again than drink that. Get me something else.”

For a second, Cloud felt a terrible fear grip him, which he realised was a fear that she was going to shout back at him, but instead she said, “I’ve got some purified water. But it’s for machines. You’ll have to pay.”

“Who cares! Just bring it to me!”

She returned from the back door with two bottles blotched with Shinra logos. Cloud knew they had to be fakes, but didn’t care — the water looked clear, and his throat ached like he’d been breathing something heavier than even the miasma of the Midgar slums for years. He tore open the stopper, pushed the rim to his lips and drank. He’d emptied half the bottle before his stomach crumpled up and he vomited right back into it.

The woman was trying to get the bottle off him and get him towards a liver bowl, but it was no good. He sunk to his knees, brown dots crowding out the centre of his vision, and he let the bottle drop along with him onto the floor, spluttering up strings of something gluey from inside his throat.

“The other,” he gasped.

“What?”

“The plate water. Give me…”

“But you said —”

“I changed my mind. Now. Come on!”

She darted away while Cloud waited, spreadeagled on the floor. His vision was blurry, but at least he had it back. His eyes were streaming — he could taste the salt in his mouth. Embarrassing. He reached up with a hand to wipe away whatever it was he’d been coughing all down his chin, half-expecting it to be glowing, but it was colourless against the suede leather of his gloves. He took them off, seeing as they were soiled, and looked at his naked hands. He didn’t feel sure that they were a part of him — across each palm was a scar, like a single cotton thread stitched just under the surface of his skin. Looking at it made him want to put his gloves back on again.

She gave him the mug she’d filled before and he knocked its contents back without a second thought — and this he could taste. Metal, ash, petroleum and that sweet-hot burn of Mako filled his insides like an orgasm, thick and woolly comfort rippling all the way down to the tips of his toes.

And then his shimmering head began to clear.

He closed his eyes, and, with his lips parted only a little, sucked in a whistling lungful of air and tucked it up under his ribs for safe keeping. He felt it mingle with and draw out whatever it was that was in him before, and, when he was satisfied, he pushed it all out.

In. Out. In. Out.

“Uh,” he eventually said, arranging his body into a sitting position and trying again to toss the hair out of his eyes. “Thank you. Sorry about everything. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Hearing his voice inside the room made it seem smaller, and emptier, and neater.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and Cloud looked at her. She had plump, pink lips and a piercing on the end of her eyebrow that drew attention to the sharp contour of her bones. The skin around it was stained faintly green by the copper. “I’ve handled people like you before. I’m used to it, mostly.”

“Right,” said Cloud, looking around. The scrap walls were tilted inwards at a claustrophobic angle; anything stacked against them seemed to be looming at him, from the unwashed pots and pans by her portable stove to the piles of dog-eared paperbacks by the bed rolls. Most of the shelves were full of medical and cosmetic items, in crumpled white paper boxes, ready to be sold — Hypers, Tranquilizers, screamers, laughers; pills and Potions. He kept catching incongruous items in the clutter — an upturned plant pot with a pair of scissors in the drainage hole, an amateurish portrait of her behind some tins of beans, a crispy stuffed animal behind the fridge.

“Hey,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Is there anywhere I can clean myself up?”

“I was going to say. See the curtain?” Cloud did — it was a faint green, rashy with rust from the metal curtain rings. “Bathroom’s in there, but take care. The light doesn’t work, so I had to take off a roof tile. This place is falling apart. By the way, I’m Len. Len Reil. I’m a chemist.”

“I’m Cloud,” Cloud said, before realising he didn’t have to tell her that sort of thing. “Cloud Strife. A former SOLDIER 1st Class?”

“Never known a SOLDIER personally before, thank God. Why’d you leave?”

Cloud opened hi **s** mouth to t **e** ll her the **ph** rase on h **i** s mind, the **r** eas **o** n buried in his **th** oughts. But saying it would be making it real — and he couldn't remember, anyway.

“Because I did. Because, why not?”

“What about the money? What about your friends-in-arms?”

“No, that’s the thing,” Cloud insisted, stepping over the bedroll on the way to the bathroom, “I’m happier without that. Otherwise things just get boring. If I have things or if I’m with people, I can’t be myself in the same kind of way.”

“Ah,” she said, turning her face down, and he noticed her cheeks were darkening. “Like a wandering swordsman from hundreds of years ago.”

“It’s not glamorous.”

“Yeah. I can tell by the look of you.”

 _She knows_ , Cloud thought, but then he realised he had no idea what it was he thought she knew, and parted the curtain that led into the bathroom. 

Inside, greenish Midgar light filtered down above him in the tight little space, and Cloud found himself feeling vaguely at home.

He inspected his reflection in the flat chrome hubcap bolted to the sloping wall. The first thing he noticed was that the whites of his eyes were bloodshot an angry pink that made the irises look almost green, but then he looked at their shape, and the shape of his cheekbones, and his expression, and for a second it all looked so wrong that he had to make himself look away, reeling backwards with his fingertips tangled in the roots of his matted hair.

Then, to make sure it was what he’d seen, he made himself look again, and this time he couldn’t help admiring his reflection. The hubcap’s angle, slightly above him, made him look like he was staring out from under the angle of his eyebrows. He caught the flash of his own eyes; hard, penetrating SOLDIER’s eyes, bright and deadly. He smiled. Even at a time like this, he was still handsome.

The sink pumped out water coloured the same amber-green as the the cup he’d had earlier; it left a residue of hard, glittering particles on his skin after he scrubbed the grime, blood and sick from his face and arms. He gargled and rinsed out his mouth; he scrubbed his face smooth with some of Len’s shaving potion; he towelled his hair dry, combed and fluffed it with his fingers, and arranged it in the mirror, pinching and rolling the tips of each spike to keep it together. When done, he forced a nonchalant expression and tossed his head. His hair bounced in a way he thought was pretty appealing. He was clean, wild-haired and good-looking, much more so than he’d expected; annoyingly fine apart from all the blood caked into his uniform.

Sitting on the toilet, he picked up the book at his feet, just to have something to do with his eyes.

Temple Argent, a skilled and resourceful swordsman, has been travelling the world to mend his broken Summon Materia that he believes contains the key to his dark past. When he wanders into a dusty town controlled by his rival, gangmistress Tourmaline Ash, he’s determined to get revenge on her for breaking his heart half a decade ago. But, like love, revenge is never simple, and when two swordsmen collide, not even the mysterious differences between Argent and Ash’s memories of events will stand in their way of killing each other…

A funny, delicious wandering swordsman romance by the author behind the 1998 Shinra Publishing Young Writer’s Award runner-up MIDGAR MIDNIGHT and the 0003 LuvLuv Magazine Romance Award winner, PLANET OF THE VILE.

**Praise for A SLIVER OF ASH:**

“Filled with more than just nostalgia for pre-Mako civilisation… carefully researched, the brutality and beauty of it feel as convincing as our own world.” — Scarmine Hurst, author of BLADE OF KINGS AND GENTLEMEN

“A beautiful swordsman collides with a powerful swordswoman in the life-drenched forests, busy town streets and torn bedsheets. Crazy, sexy and joyous.” — ADORE Magazine  


Oh.

Standing, tossing down the book, Cloud tried to weigh up in his head what this meant that Len had meant when she said he was like a wandering-swordsman hero. He rehearsed the scene in his mind — she kept looking down as she said it, and blushing; embarrassed for him or intimidated? Or into him? Was that why she’d wanted to help him in the first place? Was it just a stupid side comment not worth getting hung up upon? Isn’t being objectified just a normal part of being a SOLDIER? Who really cares?

He pulled his trousers up, irritated. He hoped she didn’t think he was the way he was for her benefit. He didn’t have time to be in anyone else’s weird swordsman fantasy — he had a better one of his own to get on with, and soon as he could get started he was out of here. He needed to tell her that before she got any ideas.

As he thought of her, she knocked on the wall beside his head, making it creak.

“It’s been about half an hour. You okay in there?”

“Yeah,” Cloud called, “just washing my hands.”

He shook them dry, spraying tiny droplets over the surface of the curtain, and put his gloves back on. The leather felt stiffer than it really ought to be; he hadn’t broken them in.

“You have any armour?” he asked, while he was thinking of it.

“I sell medicine,” Len replied. “What do you think?”

“Find someone who’s got some and get it for me. I need it quickly.”

“Why?”

“I have to go somewhere,” Cloud said, to his reflection, which repeated it back with a blank expression.

“Where? What for?”

“I don’t know yet. But it’s a calling.”

Cloud shook himself and pulled back the curtain. Len’s face split into a beam.

“Hah, pointy hair? It’s supposed to be coming back this year, I read. My brother just got his buzzed off from last time it was in like five years ago, he’s going to be so mad.”

“What?”

“No, I like it. Makes you look like you don’t care what anyone else thinks of you.”

Cloud looked back at her, wondering if he was interested in her, and concluding that he wasn’t. He knew the enormity of what attraction can feel like; he could almost remember how it felt to be me **s** m **e** rised by a **p** erson, **h** opelessly, l **i** ke nothing else matte **r** ed, and this was n **o** t **th** at. But maybe if she came onto him, it might be.

“So when are you leaving?”

“When I do. I’d be gone already but it’s — I don’t know if I should leave yet. Outside the city, it’s dangerous — “

“Even for an ex-SOLDIER?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

What had he meant?

Len seemed amused. “You’re in a bad way, aren’t you? Well. Do what you like, but I’m not letting you leave before you pay me for that water —”

“Oh yeah,” said Cloud, “about that. I remember now.” He slipped his left hand sheepishly into his pocket. “I don’t have any money.”

Len stopped looking amused.

“No-one has any money, but we still need to eat. At least I do — I don’t know about you.”

Cloud thought about telling her Mako therapy didn’t work like that, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Maybe it did.

“Sorry,” he said, sliding his other hand down the edge of the curtain. “I want to pay, but —”

“Let me have your sword!”

“No way. You can have this, though —”

Cloud reached up under his right-hand pauldron and undid the metal catch. It was stiff, and he wasn’t sure if he was pulling the clip the right direction, but it yielded eventually, and he handed it over to Len. She accepted it, turning it over in her bony hands.

“Looks weird. Is it a new model? …Let me guess, you don’t know. And look at the condition!” She tested the catch, eyes shining with avarice — “Still, I know a guy — you know the type, I’m sure, collects little thirty-fifth-scale dolls and has replica swords all over the wall — I bet he’d buy it from me. But I thought you were after more armour?”

“Not that important, really,” Cloud said, shrugging — Len laughed at the gesture, delighted, so he played it up for her a little before letting his hands drop by his sides. “Armour only matters if you’re plannin’ on getting hit.”

Len had placed the pauldron over her own shoulder, testing how it looked on her. It was too big and loose, and wobbled when she moved her arm.

“Suits you,” Cloud said, trying to be gracious. “Can you give me any change for it?”

Len was casually trying to see if the pauldron would go on her head.

“You’re in need of money, aren’t you?” she said. “What is it you actually do?”

Cloud thought for a second, then pulled his heels together, bringing his fist up to his hip in a pose —

“Everything, better than anyone.”

It had the desired effect, which was to get Len to laugh again.

“No, I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Len’s eyes narrowed.

“You mean everything? Not just fighting? Have you ever worked in construction?”

“No, but I imagine I’d be good at it.”

“And do you think you’re in a state to fight?”

“Always.”

“I don’t believe you,” Len said, but gestured towards his sword, “but I suppose with that thing in hand it doesn’t really matter.” She eyed him. “If you’re looking for work I think I might have something for you, so long as you don’t think it’s beneath you. I do pay. It won’t be much but it’ll be enough that you should be able to live in an inn for a while.”

Cloud nodded. “I’m listening.”

“Have you heard of the Sector 3 Redevelopment Project?”

Cloud shook his head, but she wasn’t even looking at him — she was crossing over to the sheet of clear reinforced plastic forming the shanty’s wall that served as a makeshift window, to stare out of it. At first he assumed she was doing it to look brooding, and felt faintly upstaged until she gestured him over — 

“There’s a billboard on the wall over there, it shows what they’re doing.”

Cloud walked up beside her and peered at it. It was tricky to make out some of the detail from underneath the spray-painted ejaculating cock appended to the artwork by some creative individual, but it seemed to show inoffensive modernist sculptures, brownstone housing and shopping arcades, all being milled through by contented middle-income consumers. In the background were several rows of curvaceous pillars, connecting the plate to the ground below like chewing gum stretching out from under a shoe-sole.

“The ‘pizza cheese’,” Len explained. Her nails squeaked against the plastic of the window. “They say most of the houses up Plate were bought by people with old money who don’t even live in them. It’s always been normal to live below Plate and take the train up to work, but now the people on top, who admire the spirit we’ve got, are starting to move back down. The slums are fun and exciting if you’re able to choose to be there.”

“At least it looks like the place’ll be a lot cleaner,” Cloud said.

“Seriously? The Shinra are bulldozing people’s homes! They’ve even got members of SOLDIER out there now as their eviction squads. Unless you’re living in a pre-Plate building or you own a plot of land, they can do what they like.”

Cloud wondered if she had expected him to act like it was his problem. It wasn’t like he didn’t sympathise or anything.

“You know, after a while, you can’t even get angry any more, or worry about anyone else. So that’s why things are getting easier for me soon.”

“What do you mean?” Cloud said, scowling. He even found himself talking in that fashionably not-quite-coherent sort of way from time to time, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still bother him.

“I bought a little plot of land closer to the rim, and I’m going to build a real shop on it. I applied for an urban planning grant as well, and the Company paid for my materials. But I can’t afford builders or security. So if you want to work for me, that’s what you can do — help me fetch and carry building materials, and keep the site — and my place here — safe from troublemakers.”

“Including the SOLDIER members evicting people?” Cloud rubbed at his nose in thought. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

“Still missing them?”

Cloud shook his head, his spikes whipping across his eyes. “I hate them. But they might—” he hesitated — “I mean, killing members of my former unit. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“There shouldn’t be the need.” Len crossed over to his sword. “Just stand around being full of yourself and posing with this thing and putting people off. You won’t even have to make an effort.” He watched her as she wrapped her hands around the grip and attempted to lift it, experimenting with the weight; then stroked it down the edge before flattening her fingertip right against it, blanching it yellow-white. “It’s blunt.”

“Of course it is,” Cloud said, with a shrug. “It’s meant to be. Or else the weight’d crush the edge flat.”

Len raised her finger to her mouth. “How do you cut with it?”

“All it means is you just have to hit with it harder. If you’re strong enough, it doesn’t matter.”

“And you’re that strong? All SOLDIERs are that strong?

Len looked up, her eyes wide and tired, as if everything that was happening was so exhaustingly strange she no longer cared to argue.

“I can’t afford more than 20 Gil an hour —”

“Make it 30 and I’ll do it.”

“24?”

“30. I’m puttin’ my life on the line, and my reputation. I deserve 300, let alone 30.”

“Look, I really want you. I need someone intimidating. But I really can’t afford any more than 24.”

“Then I want a place to stay provided, not out of my paycheck,” Cloud said, rounding on her. Her hand moved up onto the sword’s pommel. “And meals — three a day. They don’t have to be good, but that doesn’t mean they can be dog food. And medicine if I need it.”

“Oh, what am I doing?” Len stared at the sword in her hand, pivoting on its point, too heavy for her to lift, and let out a peculiar laugh. “Fine, fine, I’ll do it, SOLDIER. I’ll do it. You’ve got the job. Just please don’t be too sick to work tomorrow, it’ll ruin everything. I’ll have a word with the guy at the inn tomorrow, and see if I can talk him into giving you a room.”

Len turned, and Cloud noticed the glint of Materia through her thin linen shirt — she had one slotted into the back of her belt, in a cheap mass-produced slot. Hardly better than just holding the thing — you’d never catch a former SOLDIER 1st Class using one.

“Len?”

“What is it?”

“I just want to say…” Cloud opened his mouth, and then remembered a SOLDIER was too proud to feel gratitude towards an employer or guilt about doing business. He stared, rubbing the knuckle joint of his thumb with the tip of his other thumb, trying to think of something else to say. “Got anything that’ll help me sleep? I get — dreams.”

Len’s face sank.

“Yeah,” she said, “I can imagine. I’ve got some Dream Powder. I’ll measure it out for you so you get a safe dose for your weight.” She looked at him significantly. “Knock yourself out.”

"Can you hear me?" 

“What?”  
“Sorry, I can’t make you out.”

“Can you hear me better now?”

“Wait, no.”  
“…Don’t go.”

“Don’t worry, I’m always here for you.”  
“I need you to try to remember something with me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Have you ever watched someone die?”

“Of course I have. I’m SOLDIER. I’ve killed people.”

“How many?”

“Only a few of ‘em.”

“Do you feel bad about them?”

“Not really.”  
“No, wait. There was one person.”  
“I can remember the disappointment in my heart as his eyes widened.”  
“…Can’t remember who he was.”

“Have you ever watched someone die who you didn’t kill?”  
“A friend. Really looked into their eyes, seen the light fade.”

“Yeah. I think.”

“Who? I can’t remember.”

“Are we thinking of… Dad?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Wait. Ti — Tee —”  
“No. I can’t remember. But there was —”  
“Was there someone… in the rain?”

“He left us alone.”

“Yeah.”  
“I’m mad at him. Thinking of it hurts so much.”  
“But I can’t remember —”

“Is that his blood on your uniform?”

“I didn’t kill him!”  
“I don’t remember, but I wouldn’t — I’d never —”

“But you hate him a little. For dying.”

“And for being so… so…”

“I don’t remember.”

“I don’t want to remember. Death is just part of being a SOLDIER.”  
“It’s not important.”  
“I never used to care about killing people when I was younger.”

“Looks like you’ll get the chance to do more killing. Things are going to get pretty ugly soon.”

“Yeah. I can feel it.”  
“Who are you?”

“I don’t want to remember.”

“I hope having dreams like this is one of those things that’s so normal that no-one ever talks about it.”  
“I slept for a long time recently, without dreaming, but —”  
“ — no, wait. I dreamt, but it was —”  
“ — I dreamt of **s** om **e** one **p** eerless — **h** at **i** ng him, **r** eviling him — but I d **o** n’ **t** want to remember **h** im.”

“We’d better stop this before we end up remembering.”

“Yeah.”

“If you don’t want to remember, then wake up!”

When Len turned on the light and asked Cloud why he was awake, he shrugged at her and returned to washing his uniform in the plastic bucket. He’d put in some bleach. The bloodstains were darkening the water.

“Leave it and get back to sleep!” she hissed, underneath a straw nest of hair, “do you even know what time it is?”

So Cloud lay back down, shut his eyes, and listened to his own heartbeat mingling with the beat of some electronic music someone was playing somewhere in the distance, and the rush of his blood in his ears harmonising with the rush of cars and trains overhead, and let himself up to the patterns of the city. Behind his eyes, everything was a soft yellow-pink. It took him a few hours of staring into it to realise it was because he was seeing the glow of his own eyes illuminating the flesh, and that it was going to be all he saw with his eyes closed from now on.


	2. DAY 1 - MORNING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud, now employed by Len, goes off to sort out a dispute with a local machine repository.

The machine repository was on a road old enough to be decorated with wrought iron tree fences that had lasted for far longer than the trees. A pair of carved sandstone figures bordering the double doors were pockmarked so heavily with acid rain damage that they had no faces any more — it wasn’t even possible to tell if they’d been human. Beneath layers of peeling flyposting on the wood was painted the name ‘RICKARD’S SON’.

With a theatrical sweep, Cloud pushed both doors inwards, hearing them squeak and bat back and forth behind him as he swaggered across the cobbled courtyard. Corpses of machinery formed islands around which wound the path — a hound, chained to a post beside the entrance, raised its tentacle warily at Cloud before returning to drinking from its bowl. Cloud made a point of walking with his left hand lose and his right hand raised ever so slightly, not too high and not too low — just casually alert, just enough that anyone watching him would know he could behead them in a heartbeat if they felt like trying something.

Craning his neck around the neck of a crane, Cloud spotted the head office — wattle-and-daub, soot-smeared, and with a sign hanging outside, he suspected it had once been a pub. Presumably, this courtyard had been where people parked their carriages or something. He made a shortcut straight towards it, running at the mound of scrap; his body knew what it was doing without it reaching his conscious mind, boots finding effortless purchase on upturned forklift guts, tyres, truck carapaces. It felt like the way he ran in dreams.

He skidded to a halt in front of the office, tossed his hair out of his eyes, and knocked. Through the front window, Cloud could see a wiry figure flopping down a magazine and slouching over. The letterbox opened, revealing to Cloud a reek of petroleum, cigarettes and unwashed men, and the eyes and nose of a teenager.

“Uh, sir?” he asked, his voice creaking as he spoke. His nose was pink at the tip with unsurfaced acne. “If you’re here to return keys, please just drop them through. We’re closed.”

“I’m looking for Richardson,” Cloud said. He wondered if he should attempt to look charismatic and friendly, or intimidating and unfriendly, and his decision reversed itself several times as he considered it. Whatever expression he managed to make got him confused blinking in return.

“Uh, he isn’t here,” he said. His dark eyes swivelled down to take in all of Cloud’s uniform. “You one of Mukki’s lads, or something?”

“If it helps,” said Cloud, with a shrug. “Len from the Chemist’s told me Richardson ought to be here and she was pretty sure. Did he tell you how long he’d be gone?”

“I don’t know. No. I’d ask someone else, but I’m afraid I’m the only one here —”

From somewhere in the background a male voice yelled, “ _Arx? Who’re you talking to? You’d better not be telling them I’m here._ ”

“Was that Richardson?” said Cloud.

“No, it was…” Arx managed, before giving a heavy sigh and looking at Cloud with a defeated expression. “Please, don’t take it out on me! I just work here. I’m trying to save up to buy a motorcycle…”

Cloud reached towards the letterbox. This was enough to make Arx shrivel away.

“Richardson!” Cloud shouted, pitching his voice as deep and forceful as he could make it go, “you’d better let me in or I’ll bust down the door!”

From behind the door came the sound of a cumbersome man in cumbersome boots, and the chain coming off.

“Alright, alright, keep your hair on,” said Richardson, opening the door wide. Cloud noticed to his displeasure that Richardson was much taller than he was, which seemed unreasonable, though at least he was also much rounder. He had pronounced, froggy eyes and large hands that were actually very attractive and graceful even though they were stained with nicotine and engine grease. “Is this what Mukki’s into these days? Dear oh dear. What seems to be the problem?”

Cloud barged past him, head lowered. When he stood right in the middle of the office he turned on his heel to face Richardson, flinging his low-key disinterest at the walls from centre stage.

“Hey,” he said, raising a hand. Richardson mirrored the gesture, the corner of his mouth crawling up his face as if he couldn’t decide whether or not he should be laughing. “I’m here about Len’s digger.”

“Len’s digger?” Richardson said. “I’m afraid I don’t remember anything about Len ordering a digger.”

“I’ll refresh your memory,” Cloud said, hand on his hip. “Len said she paid you and when she came to collect, you weren’t handin’ it over. And now I’m here to get it.”

“Dear me,” said Richardson. “She’s been throwing her weight around lately. Do you have a receipt?”

“No,” Cloud said, hands flung out by his shoulders. “Apparently you tore it up and threw it away in front of her.”

“Still believe the sort of things she tells people, do you?”

Making sure all attention was on him, Cloud turned his head to look at the wastepaper basket in the corner, and then flexed his shoulders and back just enough to make all the leather and metal on his body creak. Arx whimpered from somewhere behind the plastic houseplant on the opposite wall.

“I suppose I could double-check my files,” Richardson said. He squatted down in front of the bin, feet flat on the floor, and began taking out sheaves of papers, occasionally brushing off their coating of cigarette ash.

As Cloud prowled over to keep an eye on him, Arx, perhaps finding him too close for comfort, bolted to the other side of the room to cower behind the vending machine by the front door. Cloud couldn’t resist testing it by turning and heading towards the front door, whereby Arx made off towards the plant again. After amusing himself with a little bit of back-and-forth of this kind, and entirely to see what the reaction would be, Cloud picked Arx’s magazine off the desk and stuffed it into his pocket. Arx glared out through holes in the plastic leaves, fuming, but not even saying a word. It looked like being a SOLDIER meant you could get away with anything.

“What’s that, Richardson?” Cloud said, noticing the piece of paper in Richardson’s hands was balled up.

“Hmm,” Richardson said, scrutinising the ball of paper as if he was reading it, “well, would you look at that? Arx must have taken the order without informing me of it. Not how we do things here, not at all. I’ll have to dock his pay.”

Arx made a faint moan into his hands.

“Don’t you know the kind of stuff Len gets mixed up in? I don’t think Mukki would approve of knowing you had anything to do with her.”

“Mukki doesn’t care what I do with my personal life so long as I keep delivering the goods for him when I’m on duty,” Cloud invented, hoping he was doing it right. “Look, I don’t really understand what you’re trying to achieve, so if you just set me up with the digger I’ll let it all slide.”

Richardson nodded, and drew himself up off the floor.

“It’s all just a lot of trivial misunderstandings,” he said. “It’s in the garage, I’ll prepare it for you. Arx? You keep our customer company while I’m gone. Remember, good customer service.”

Cloud rolled his eyes, took his sword off his back, and slumped into a plastic chair, knees spread wide and hands behind his head. When Richardson had exited, he heard Arx venture,

“Hey, why’d you take that ma — my muh — oh, forget it, it’s old anyway, you can keep it —”

“Do you have any idea what this is all for?” Cloud asked him, not moving his head.

“There’s another c-customer.”

“Another customer? And he’s prioritising them over Len?” Cloud sat forward, now interested. “So why doesn’t Richardson just give the money back?”

“Because he needs the money. The other customer isn’t paying.”

Cloud opened his mouth to ask why they were so important in that case, but then looked at the sword in his hand and realised he knew exactly what.

“Bulldozing people’s homes?” he mumbled. Then his grip on his sword stiffened, and he shot to his feet. “Arx, I’m sorry about ruining your day at work and I’m sorry about what I’m going to have to do. Tell him you tried to stop me if you think it’ll do any good.”

“Um, I might, I might — he’ll never believe it.”

“No worries. I can chop you a couple of times to make it look convincing. What do you say?”

Arx turned pale, so Cloud stuck his sword onto his back and walked into the garage, adjusting his hair at the front as he went. So much for trying to be helpful. 

Immediately, Cloud was struck by the air and smell of the slums — the garage was more of a huge canopy, with one wall leading straight into the repository’s junkyard. The vehicles were lined up at the back. It wasn’t difficult to spot the digger, even at the other end, because it was huge, acid yellow and because Richardson was sitting in it, having an echoing PHS conversation.

“…so I’m taking it over right now instead. Good. Okay. Just one thing while you’re here; which ones are the purple ones again? Yeah, the purple SOLDIERs. …No, if it was blue I would have said ‘blue’ — come on, do I seem to you like the kind of man who knows the names of different shades of purple? It’s just…”

Cloud stopped outside the digger, looking it over. It was an absolute beast, with six hydraulic digitigrade legs and a scoop shaped like a hand; he’d have loved a toy like this when he was little. He pounded on the side.

“Excuse me, I have to go.” Richardson pulled the PHS away from his ear and slammed the aerial down. “What? Can’t you see I’m taking a call?”

“You were going to take the digger and take it to SOLDIER,” Cloud explained, reaching for his sword. “I can’t let you.”

With only the barest of flourishes, he levelled the sword’s point towards Richardson’s face.

Richardson sighed and put his hand on the gear stick.

“You’d kill me over something like this?” he said. “There’s something wrong with you, isn’t there? Goodbye!”

The digger roared into life, its exhausts jetting yellow-green flares. Its legs tensed and began to rattle down the asphalt.

“Hey!” Cloud shouted, watching it walk off for a second before dashing in to catch up with it. When he was level with it, it was moving slowly enough that he was able to fit his stride to its pace without much trouble, walking along with his sword rested on his shoulder. “I’m not going to give up!” he bellowed up at the cockpit. “I’ve got a job to do!”

Richardson, who had been pumping impotently at the accelerator with his leg, leaned into the horn with the weight of his whole body. Cloud, raising a hand to grab his ear, could tell from Richardson’s mouth movements and eloquent hand gestures that he was being sworn at, but over the din it was anyone’s guess exactly what he was saying.

_Think it might be possible to climb up before it gets too fast…_

_Not yet.  
Now!_

Cloud stopped, letting the digger speed up ahead of him, pulled in a full lungful of air and rocketed into a sprint. He flung himself off the ground — whirling his sword over to the side of his body as a counterweight, he landed on the thigh piece of the digger’s middle left leg. Richardson took his hand off the horn and went for the door handle; Cloud saw the door fling at him and threw himself to his stomach, gripping onto the digger’s leg with his elbows.

The motion of the leg was a nauseating roll and getting faster every rotation; Cloud reflected, hand in his mouth, how lucky it was that he never got motion sickness, because this would really get to him. He managed to crawl back up the joint and balance himself, crouching, on his feet — this time, when the door shot at his face, he grabbed it, hugging onto its edge with his left arm and stabbing his sword into the cockpit.

Richardson howled in fright. He tried slamming the door closed, but the sword in the door frame kept Cloud’s fingers from being crushed. He launched at the controls; the horn blasted three times — “ _go!-a!-way!!_ ”. Cloud gritted his teeth, used to his ears ringing. The digger’s arm flailed towards him inexpertly, the fingers on its scoop grabbing at his body with an awful creak; Cloud kicked at the digger’s flank, launching himself backwards on the hinges, then spun around the door’s edge onto its inside edge and let its motion launch him into the cockpit.

Two men Cloud’s size would have been a tight fit in there; with Richardson’s extra bulk and a ridiculously large sword into the bargain, it was impossible. After some shoving and screaming, Cloud ended up hanging half-in, half-out; his left arm and right boot bracing his body in the door frame and his sword arm hanging behind him like an injured wing. He leaned into Richardson’s space.

“Okay, okay,” Richardson babbled, both his arms grabbing onto the cockpit sides — Cloud was close enough that he could smell the stale smoke oozing out of Richardson’s sweat - “I surrender. Just let me go!”

Shaking the hair out of his face, Cloud found himself staring out of the windscreen. The digger, by now, had raised its pace to a strong canter and was most of the way out of the repository. Cloud swiped the blunt edge of his sword at an errant, unreasonably sharp-looking crane hook that could have gutted him like a fish — the bar swung out of his way.

“What are you waiting for!? Hit the brakes!”

Richardson stared back at him vacuously until Cloud lunged at him with the sword tip. This seemed to communicate the point. The whole cockpit lurched downwards, like a descending lift; the digger’s feet bent at the hip joints, leaving it squatted with its knees in the air like a tarantula.

“Now get out!” Cloud barked, gesturing to the ground with his sword.

“I can’t! I can’t while you’re in the way!”

Cloud, arms otherwise occupied, attempted to shrug by moving only his face, and then hopped onto the digger’s knee joint. His boot sole squeaked against its surface — it was at an angle and covered in high-gloss paint, and he hardly had a good enough grip — but he extended his hand to help Richardson onto the steps out.

Richardson looked into Cloud’s face, and for a second it seemed to be with consideration; then he snarled, launching at Cloud, arms outstretched.

Cloud jerked, losing balance. He scrabbled, chopping his sword upwards to hook it into the cockpit — 

The first thing he noticed was the resistance down his arms. That was funny, he thought, not yet processing what had happened, he’d always thought bone would have felt harder to cut through than that had.

 _Then_ he heard Richardson scream.

“ _Fgggahhhhh-!_ ”

Cloud steaded himself to see Richardson staring in goggle-eyed horror at the space on the ends of his arms where his hands had been until a fraction of a second ago. The sword in Cloud’s hands was smeared with blood.

“It’s not like I meant it,” Cloud said, because it was the first thing his mind had reached for, and because the constricting dread in his stomach was so strong that it was difficult to even talk.

Richardson’s face was turning the colour of cottage cheese.

“What was that _for?!_ ”

Cloud bristled, victimised. “I just told you I didn’t mean it!”

“Give them back! Give me back my _hands!_ ”

Give it back!

The world behind Cloud’s eyes flashed white and he grabbed his head, trying to pull himself together. He didn’t want to remember yet. He couldn’t remember yet.

“Shut up!” he said, dragging the hand through his hair and down his face, “I’m trying!”

He flung his sword at the floor and reached in to scoop up Richardson’s body, slinging him across his shoulders like a wounded SOLDIER.

“Ow! Your shoulder’s got $#&*&%@ spikes on, it’s digging into my — ”

“Just shut up!” Cloud barked again, dumping him on the ground without grace or ceremony. Richardson was shaking, sobbing violently. Cloud looked at him, up at the cockpit, and touched his nose — “Hold on a sec. You’ll be fine.”

He clambered up the digger’s steps and reached under the seat for the first aid kit. As he retrieved it, he heard the peals of Richardson laughing bitterly over his shoulder; looking round to ask him what was so funny, he noticed he was staring at his PHS, which had apparently fallen out of his pocket at some point. It was vibrating across the ground and there was nothing Richardson could do about it.

“When SOLDIER comes and finds out what you did,” he gurgled, “your hands won’t be what they chop off first!”

“No, look,” Cloud said, landing on the ground in a crouch, and kicking the PHS away, “the first aid kit’s full. We can get ‘em back on quickly and the magic’ll do its job.”

In a way, Richardson was lucky that it was just him and his old sword that were responsible for this. Cloud could recall hearing **s** tori **e** s about bes **p** elled swords t **h** at sl **i** ced lace **r** ati **o** ns which would no **t** ever **h** eal.

With the middle spread of the magazine in his pocket torn out and used as a makeshift protective glove, Cloud retrieved both severed hands. One was by the digger’s feet; the other had rolled a little way under. He squatted down beside Richardson, took one of his pale, blotchy arms, and — 

“ _Wrong arm_ , you ignorant _shit_!”

“Uh, yeah.” Cloud swapped the severed limbs over in his hands, this time holding the correct one. “Sorry about that. This do?”

Richardson gasped for breath.

“Stay with me,” Cloud said, nudging his shoulder with his fist. “I’m going to have to press it against the stump. It’s cut at an angle so it should fit just right. But it’s going to hurt.”

Looking resigned, Richardson nodded. Cloud opened the packet of Potion-soaked bandages, held it ready with its end wrapped over the tip of his thumb, and then pushed the severed hand onto the stump with his left hand while binding it firmly with his right. The clean, cold smell of Potion cut through the reek of blood; Richardson gulped and sweated and screamed in agony until the limb was bound.

“There,” said Cloud, patting him on his shoulder, “didn’t I say it wouldn’t be so bad?”

“I’ve got two arms, you —”

“Don’t rush me,” Cloud responded, brushing his hair out of his eyes and preparing bandages for the other arm.

As Cloud reattached the other one, he kept some of his attention on the other one to check the spell was taking. It was bruising severely, but the palm was beginning to flush with healthy blood flow. It was just as well for Richardson that Cloud did want to remember the medical training he’d gone through in boot camp.

With his arms reattached and the spells taking hold, Richardson sat slumped on the floor, still too stunned to do anything beyond moan in pain. Cloud uncapped a liquid Potion from the kit, knowing Richardson’s fingers wouldn’t be up to opening things yet, and pressed the bottle into his slightly healthier hand. Then he packed up the first-aid kit and his sword, and clambered back up into the digger.

After all, he still had a job to do.

Richardson scrabbled about below on his knees, lunging for the PHS, but his fingers weren’t up to grasping things yet. They kept glancing off the surface.

“Never thought the day would come when I’d be calling the Police,” he cackled, breath ragged with pain and frenzy.

“Maybe give it a little time, first,” Cloud said, adjusting himself in the driver’s seat. He took a moment to savour the leather on the back of his neck and his bare arms — it felt good being in charge of this powerful, pneumatic frame. “Your fingers might be strange for a couple of weeks. But you’ve got to take it easy or you’ll never recover. So, just for a while, no typing. No video games. You know the kind of thing.”

“You know what you are?” cried Richardson. “You’re a —”

Cloud shrugged and held the horn down.

He kept it held down as the digger’s legs tensed and the thing began to trot out towards the open road. All in all, he reflected, he’d had worse first days on the job.


	3. DAY 1 - LUNCHTIME

When Len, sidling in and out between the pegs at the building site, heard the digger approach, she waved at Cloud with both her hands, delighted. She was even gracious enough to applaud the backflip that he used to dismount.

“Look at it!” she remarked, stalking around it, reaching out with her hands to test its front knee guards. If there was any blood still left on it after Cloud had done his best to scrape it off with the magazine, she didn’t have anything to say about it. “What a beauty. We’ll have the foundations done in no time at all. Richardson must have got on with you.”

“Not really,” said Cloud, leaning against it and arranging his hair, “but we got negotiating after a while. How are things going over here? Any sign of SOLDIER?”

“None yet,” she said, shrugging. “There’s some sort of protest up at the Hub today, so I guess they’ve got their plates full kettling students. Did you see that I’ve set the pegs down?” 

She gestured with a sweep of her arm to the plot. The area wasn’t enormous — Cloud generously estimated about a hundred and fifty square metres — but was about three times bigger than her old place; three of its sides were regular, but the fourth was leaning in at an angle, like it lacked the energy to stand up straight.

“Funny shape, I know, that’s why I got it cheap.”

“Just one thing, while I’m thinking of it,” said Cloud, sliding a hand along the digger’s side while walking over to her, “Richardson said something about you being mixed up in something. Now, it’s not like I believe it, since virtually nothing else he said to me was true at all, but…”

Len shook her head, chewing on the dead skin on her lip.

“He’s a strange one, Richardson. Never been quite the same since his mother died. He became all evasive and bitter, and distant, too. Used to be a lot more hands-on. What was that look for?”

“What? Nothing,” said Cloud, who hadn’t been aware he was doing a look.

—

Cloud spent only ten minutes mashing at the controls on the digger’s panel before he managed to get the system into [AUTO] mode. An HUD panel lit at the corner of the dashboard, and automatically processed and illuminated the locations of the pegs; once he’d driven the thing by hand to the dot targets it gave him, the arm dug on its own. This was just enough that Cloud still felt like he was in charge, and even clever for being able to do it — all just as well, as Cloud did not think he was supposed to be the sort of person who read instruction manuals these days. Whenever Len, perched on a pile of cement bags with her hard hat wedged over her eyes, looked up from her book, he made a point of grabbing theatrically at the levers and grimacing, trying to give the impression that what he was doing was really difficult but also kind of beneath his abilities.

The growing heap of soil at the side of the plot was a type of earth Cloud had never seen before. The texture wasn’t too different from what he remembered of the farmlands back home, if a little sandier and sootier, and full of chips of brick and coal; but its colour was bleached, almost greenish. Every now and again it would catch the light and he’d see it glimmered faintly with micromateria. As the arm plunged in he could almost feel its wrongness squeaking against his teeth.

“Hold it!” Len bellowed. “There’s something in here.”

Cloud located a [QUICK STOP] control and flicked it on, the scoop coming to a rest just off the surface. Len clambered down into the pit, crossed over to where Cloud was working, tentative around the scoop; and got down on her knees, tunnelling something out with her hands.

“What is this?” she called up at him, backing up so he could see. She displayed her prize to him by holding onto its horns. “Part of a monster’s skull?”

“Just a cow skull,” Cloud called back. Like a lot of country children, he’d grown up playing with knucklebones and dissecting owl pellets, and could probably have identified the cow’s breed if he’d got a better look. At her clueless expression, he clarified, “a cow. It’s the animal beef comes from.”

“Oh,” said Len, looking into its face. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them now that you’ve told me. Someone must have been raising it here before the Plate went up. They say this area was all fields once.”

Cloud realised he hadn’t seen so much as a scrap of grass here, no planters or trees on the streets, or even mould or moss or lichen. Waste was pouring out of every pipe, swelling out of drains, towering out of bins, and yet there seemed to be so little decomposition. Looking at the skull, Cloud thought about how sometimes, as a kid messing around at the secret place at the foot of the mountains where only he’d been brave enough to go, he used to find rocks spiralled with the remains of the ancient creatures that used to swim there before the seas drained.

“Are you going to keep it?” Cloud asked.

“No! That’s bad luck. For all I know, the cow’s spirit might get mad and move into my new shop and like hell I’m putting up with that. We have to treat it with respect, I’m serious.”

Cloud waited until she climbed out of the pit with the skull under her arm and placed it into the slag heap. The next scoop of earth poured over the skull, half-burying it.

—

The sound of work seemed to be enough to keep most of the monsters back, but there were a few exceptions. When the stray Hound leapt at Len, thin and hungry, she executed it with a Fire spell while Cloud had still been scrabbling to find where his seatbelt was plugged in.

“If it makes you feel less redundant, I don’t know how long the luck will last,” Len said, sucking on her fingers and trying to control her adrenaline-trembling, “the News says the monsters are agitated at the moment. Something to do with too much raw sewage or too little raw sewage or something.”

“Probably just cover to explain SOLDIER’s activities,” Cloud suggested.

“Ooh! Listen to you! Conspiracy theories now?”

“I don’t mean it like that. I’m only bringing it up because they used to do that kind of thing when I was there. Tell the people SOLDIER is there to protect them from the monsters or the terrorists, whatever it is this week — then have them occupy the area, crushing any resistance. You can be really overt and, if you stick to your story, civilians will even defend you as you oppress them. Kings and barons used to do it thousands of years ago. Of course, if you asked a SOLDIER general they’d just say all other strategies are outmoded…”

“Ha ha ha! They’d better keep the Reactors safe from you, you’ll be blowing them up soon!”

Cloud nodded, unsure if he was being made fun of, before realising that she was living his overblown explanation. He ran his hand up the length of the digger’s main control stick, currently locked erect, and pulled it down flat.

“I should get back to work, shouldn’t I?”

“Yep, there’s the insight that made SOLDIERs famous. Come on, just a little more and we’ll be ready to level the foundation.”

—

Cloud found his attention beginning to wander around the time he’d got the machine into Levelling Mode. Its large and flexible hand swept and patted the foundation flat; he watched it, hands shaking against the controls with a physical sensation he couldn’t identify. It was a feeling of desperation in his core, like he needed to do something, but he couldn’t tell what.

“You’re hungry,” Len told him as he climbed out of the cockpit, looking at him with one raised eyebrow. “That’s literally all it is.”

“You’re sure about that?” Cloud said, landing on the ground.

Len took off her hardhat and began to undo the tufty ponytail at the back of her dyed-red hair.

“You know,” she began, “I’m still trying to figure out if you’re odd for a SOLDIER or if — or if what you’re like is normal for them. You’re hungry! You haven’t eaten anything, you’ve been working all day and it’s 2PM.”

Cloud stared back at her, blank. Then it was as if someone twisted a lens in his head and brought the incomprehensible jumble of feeling into sharp focus, and he realised she was right. This body still had a lot of quirks and senses he had to learn how to handle; even before, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hungry.

He didn’t want to remember the last time he’d eaten.

“Yeah,” he said. “Probably.”

Len turned away.

“You’re useless. Still, you’ve worked well — how would you like to go for lunch?”

From her pocket emerged a handful of crunched-up notes and change; she thumbed off a hundred-gil note and passed it across, looking down into his eyes. Cloud took it and looked at it, wondering if he ought to thank her. Then he made up his mind.

“What is this? I’ve worked six hours. You owe me an extra 42.”

“Really?” Len said, with an expression of disappointment. “I’ve got to keep some deposit to keep you coming back.”

Cloud shook his head aggressively, storming off to pull his sword out of the ground. “An extra 42, and — officially speaking, I’m the security guard. So you owe me the bounty from that Hound you killed into the bargain.”

“What? But I killed it.”

“But I would have done if you hadn’t got there first,” Cloud said, letting his sword click onto his back.

Len laughed the particular laugh of someone too frightened to disagree.

“Cloud,” she said, “Cloud, please, I know you want to leave the city but I need to have you back. I need you. Look.” And she gestured behind herself to the foundation. “After you get back we can gravel and, who knows, maybe even pour the concrete. A foundation in a day!”

Cloud sniffed, honestly not feeling as annoyed as he wanted to look.

“I’m not ready to go yet. Don’t you trust me?”

“That money will be more than enough for food, I promise. Just promise me you’ll be back within half an hour.”

“Half an hour,” Cloud said, voice flat, and shrugged with his palms outstretched before turning around to leave.

—

As Cloud walked further and further from the plot, the streets began to narrow and the buildings got larger and more densely packed, pre-Plate structures beginning to push through the canopy of corrugated steel and chipboard. What was most overwhelming was the stench. The Plate reeked of Mako and metal, and every time Cloud passed a shanty with its door open he got a whiff of uncleared waste or tacky deodorant or smoke, but even that was all light relief compared to the sewage. Having grown up in the countryside, Cloud was familiar with what happened to the air when the fields got sprayed, but it had done nothing to prepare him for this. It filled his face with its bland, sterile foullness, no hint of putrefaction or possibility for transformation. After passing a frankly indescribable row of chemical toilets from which a lone Hound was feeding, he had to pause to wipe the water out of his eyes, wondering if he could be bothered to make the effort to eat.

The shanties themselves were constructed with such a wide variety of things, emblazoned with so much colour, that everything blended to paintwater grey. Cloud’s eyes were immediately drawn to a food truck tucked away in an alley some way away, less because it was bright red and more because it was the same bright red all over. He approached it through its cloud of delicious-smelling steam; the walls beside it peeled at him with posters (BEAT RUSH — NONSTOP SLUMDUB/HIPHOP/MAGITECH-HOUSE — MYTHRIL EXCHANGE — 0004/03/09).

Its base was sunken into the ground, and judging by the rust on the corrugated steel around its chimney, it had been there for decades. Three of the occupants of its four singed barstools looked like they’d been eating there since it was established. The fourth was a young, culturally-affluent type wearing a few fashionably asymmetrical bits of armour and a tattoo on his neck; Cloud leaned against the truck as close to him as he could stand, occasionally drumming the metal on his gloves against its body, and not blinking, until the young man decided that he’d really rather eat on the go, no you can keep the change, thank you.

“Hey,” Cloud said to the vendor, adjusting himself on the warm vacated stool. “Give me…” he stared at where the menu was written on the side, but his strained eyes refused to focus, “uh, whatever’s the largest meal you do. I’m hungry.”

“That’ll be 70 Gil, then.”

Not without some reservation, Cloud put his hundred-Gil note down on the counter. The vendor scooped it up into his pouch, wiped his hands on the front of his apron, and got to work ladling food from blackened tureens. The meal in front of him was pretty generous for the price and came in several boxes — a big foam container of fried vegetable noodles; a metal teapot with a teabag in; a yellow soup with what looked like bits of boiled egg in it for some reason; and a plate of grease-shiny battered balls in a bright red sauce. Cloud took one and bit into it. The filling tasted like piping hot, if worryingly nonspecific in flavour, meat; but after he’d swallowed it, the taste curdled into something chemical and Makotic. Monster-meat. Yuck. It wasn’t like you could have any farms in Midgar - Cloud supposed importing anything that didn’t slowly build up in your system and drive you mad would be out of the 70 Gil price range, but why even bother at all?

He polished them off anyway, because they were actually alright, and then started on the noodles. The flavour exploded into his head — a hit of salt and sugar and grease — and Cloud let out an involuntary moan of ecstasy before shovelling another several forkfuls into his face.

“Enjoying yourself?” the vendor asked, and Cloud quickly swallowed his mouthful.

“Uh, I’ve never had anything like this before at feeding — I mean — sorry, I mean, back home.”

“Really?”

“Mm,” Cloud agreed, around a sip of soup. “Where I’m from it was so cold all year round, so everything was slow-cooked and fell apart on the fork. I don’t think I’ve ever had noodles before.”

He ate and drank, for a little while longer, in silence.

“Your accent,” the vendor asked, after thinking about it for a while. “You from out West?”

Cloud touched his throat, feeling betrayed. “Yeah.”

“And they don’t have noodles on the West Continent? They always say it’s backwards. Is it true they still believe in witches there?”

“No!” Cloud said, failing to not find himself offended, “at least I never did. I’m not some ignorant farmboy just because I’m not from here. I was in SOLDIER.”

“Yeah, the uniform’s a giveaway. That’s why I charged you double.”

“What?”

“I always charge SOLDIER uniforms double,” said the vendor, drifting away to refill a coffee pot for one of the old men on Cloud’s left. “It’s policy.”

“But that’s…”

“Sorry, all sales final. Didn’t you know? I get three of your friends here all the time and they pay it anyway. The little one says she’d have me arrested if the dumplings weren’t so good. The big one calls it something… What was it? ‘Community outreach’.”

“My friends? In SOLDIER? Get real,” Cloud said, trying with mixed success to snarl while shoving delicious but apparently overpriced noodles into his face. “I’m not a member any more. I work on a building site.” He looked up at the vendor with his eyes wide, a hand on his chin, gathering about himself any innocent country-boy charm he might still have access to. “Now, uh, she’s holding back my money and I don’t get paid much to start with…”

The vendor shook his head. “It’s not a tax on your earnings. It’s a tax on intimidating my customers. Now shut up and eat up.”

Cloud responded with a glare, slapping his hands down on the counter. “Forget it, I’m done. I’ll go if you want me gone that badly.” He downed the remainder of his soup and stood up. “So what about your reasons? You’re a crook. Your food’s awful and I hope you go out of business. Anyway, those three members of SOLDIER you were talking about; do you think you can help me find them?”

The three men to his left, who had fallen into hushed attention as the argument had progressed, all hooted at once with laughter. Cloud glanced over in irritation before deciding to ignore them.

“What do you care?”

“I need them to test something,” Cloud said, aware this wasn’t much of an explanation.

“What the hell, I’ll tell you,” the vendor said, taking his glasses off to wipe his eyes with his thumb. “They’re said they’re clearing.”

“Clearing what? Houses?”

“Monsters. Which means they’re Edgeways, near the old Mythril Exchange. The whole place’s a nest site of bloodthirsty things. Now go away.”

With a sneer in the vendor’s direction, and entirely to prove that there was nothing anyone could do to make him take orders, Cloud made a point of chatting to each of the old men in turn before he left. They talked about the Plate and the food here, and beautiful granddaughters his age studying at the Northeastern Edge College — none of them had anything vital to contribute, but they all seemed like pretty decent people. Once he was back on the road, he heard some stranger slip into the alleyway and sit down where he’d been; he didn’t even turn around at the vendor’s voice asking if that weirdo was gone.

—

The walls screamed incomprehensible words in every writing system Cloud could read and several he couldn’t — businesslike abecedarium and syllablery in chunky plastic, dense squares of ideogram-script in magically glowing ink, sensual neon coils of cyrillic that burned their shapes into his eyes when he looked away. Mercifully, he managed to locate a bent street sign pointing towards the Mythril Exchange amongst the visual clutter.

His eyes twinged at the edges with continual distractions, until he gave up trying not to gawp like a tourist and carried on, occasionally spinning around as he walked, electrified with colour. Children in grubby neon tshirts, hopping over gutters, poked each other with wooden swords; a man with an amplifier played a raucous funk guitar solo with no beginning nor end nor plot; a wrought iron statue of Odin reared from the edge of a stone plinth, aflame with floodlights; and overhead, even above the eternal thunder of trains and cars, Cloud could make out the phantom clang of the Plate as it expanded in the midday heat. Outside, the sun was probably out. It was probably a pretty nice day.

He cut his way over a road, bumping into a woman who yelled at him for pushing, and ducked into an alley that smelled of Mako and weed, cubes of broken glass crunching under his feet between the cobbles. The voices of the city centre were still audible, but as he turned corners past overflowing bins, he felt increasingly alone — and then slightly unreal, as if nothing he did here mattered due to the lack of an audience. Eventually, he passed by a terraced row of back doors and emerged on a street where the tarmac was pocked with claw marks.

At the end of the street, not far to his right, was the Mythril Exchange, still handsome and imperial despite the boards on its vaulted windows and door. To its right, and slightly behind, was a gravelled area with railings on three of its four sides, perhaps an attempt at a plantless garden; and leaning against those railings, wearing their swords like costume jewellery, were three figures in uniforms of inten **se ph** thalo blue —

 _No,_ Cloud thought, whipping back into the alleyway before he was spotted, _no. What am I even thinking? It’s nothing like that this time._

He steadied himself with a hand against his head, considering his next move. The broken back door of the house to his right caught his eye.

The house had been abandoned some time ago; outlines of long-gone furniture still stained the dated wallpaper. A swarm of either very tiny monsters or very large bugs, eating a suspicious stain on the carpet in the hallway, scattered into the space under the skirting board at the sound of his approach. The front room, an item shop, still had unfashionable adverts pasted on the walls. Cloud kept to the wall; then glanced over at the front window and saw a deathly SOLDIER, white and crouched, staring at him with awful glowing eyes — 

He twitched and realised it was his own reflection, obscured by the woolly darkness in the air. The glow in his eyes was brighter than usual from the increased blood flow; he held his breath to lower the oxygen in his blood until they dimmed as much as he could make them, and approached the glass to peer out at the SOLDIERs.

Against the austere grey columns of the Mythril Exchange and the faded yellow of the earth, their gaudy uniforms almost hurt the eyes. The shape of them, the distinctive bagginess around the knees and the lean, bare arms, still gave him a nostalgic thrill — he could almost smell the fresh ink of his call-up papers. But it was mixed with a fear that twisted his stomach. He couldn’t even remember why it was that he was so scared of them, and it didn’t make any sense. Why was he so scared? He couldn’t —

Don’t remember, just think. You have to think with a cool head at times like this.

They seemed to all be looking at a map, and all had Hardedges strapped to their blue backs.

You know what that means?

_Yeah,_ Cloud thought. _If they’re carrying shorter swords, it means they’re either riding bikes, which isn’t very likely, or they’re expecting to fight in a cramped space where there’s not enough room to swing a full-scale up to momentum. Like a cramped building. You see, it’s all pretty obvious if you’re paying attention._

The three of them were talking, but Cloud couldn’t hear a word over the rushing of the vehicles overplate; he was alright at lip-reading, but the helmets made it tricky. Frustrated, Cloud leaned closer, as if the difference of inches would do anything.

Then one put his hand to his helmet.

“ _Who’s that?_ ”

Cloud jerked back, then caught himself, straightening up and walking tall towards the shop door. It was locked, so he backed up, sword held perfectly level with the floor, and rammed his way straight through the glass.

“ _What the —_ ”

Shards exploded around him. Cloud walked forward, down the front steps, trying to look like he did that sort of thing all the time.

“Hey,” he said, putting his sword on his back with an obvious flourish. He stood in front of the group, his hand loosely on his hip, regarding them like he wasn’t sure if they were serious.

If he could fool them, he thought, he could fool anyone. That was why he had to do this.

Like a military drill. Just keep doing it, over and over, until it gets easy.

The SOLDIERs gathered together, watching him from behind their helmets.

“What was that even _for_?” asked the one who spotted him, laughing, appalled. His broad hands were holding a phantom grip. “You know I’m going to have to write you up for property destruction, right?”

“What happened to you?” the smallest one asked — like the noodle vendor had said, a woman. There were only a handful of women in SOLDIER, which meant this was almost definitely the same group. She gestured towards his uniform with the tip of her sword. “You’re all faded and rusty.”

“Yeah,” the tallest one said, gesturing to his own shoulder-guards, “you’re half-dressed.”

“And you’re covered in soil — you look like you’ve been dug up. What was it that got you?”

“Watch out! You’ll have your eye out!” Cloud said, jerking away from her sword’s business end as she thrust it slightly too close to his face. What crappy blade discipline — you’d never get away with that during the War. “Third Class! Just a bunch of amateurs.”

“So you’re First?” the short one scoffed, conspicuously not lowering her sword. “Look at him, he’s hardly taller than me.”

Cloud shrugged. Leaning forward, he held apart his top and bottom eyelid with his forefinger and thumb. The SOLDIERs inspected the glow.

“Looks legit,” the tallest one said. “Wow, they finally came through on this one. I thought all our backup was stuck watching the protest up Hubwards. I’ll feel a lot more confident going into the Arches with a First.”

Cloud looked around for any obvious arches, and failed to see any. What was he talking about?

“No-one sent me here,” Cloud said. “I just happened to be around, I guess. But you look like you need an extra pair of hands.”

For a little while, the group was silent. Cloud continued to stare them down, a hand on his hip, fidgeting his foot impatiently, until the tension suddenly broke.

“Okay,” the one who first saw him said, laughing. Cloud could tell from the way the two near him relaxed along with him that he was in charge here. “Sorry about that. We have to be careful — there’s loads of tragic individuals out there with surplus uniforms and mental problems. We should introduce ourselves.”

Each of the SOLDIERs pushed the catches to lift their visors. Cloud regarded their faces. At first glance they looked different — the tallest one white and willowy, the leader black and just a little taller and more solid than Cloud, the little one a freckled woman with the fleshy strength of a wrestler — but the thing with SOLDIERs was that once you really started looking at them you realised how much they all looked the same, Mako eyes and Mako muscles and Mako bones. It wasn’t as if they were all clones, but all four of them could have just about been plausible family.

“Lieutenant Gyel Harley,” the leader introduced himself with a beaming smile. Cloud couldn’t help noticing the glow it gave his face, the way it even made Cloud relax — SOLDIER management had always known how to put charismatics in charge.

But listen. He said his rank in his name, like it means anything. Which means he’s basically clueless. Shouldn’t you know that?

“Right now I’m the leader. These guys do everything I say, so watch yourself.”

The woman SOLDIER laughed.

“You wish. I’m Cicero Klein, by the way.”

“She’s our party Berserker,” Gyel said, nudging her with his thumb. She pulled a face of exaggerated annoyance and nudged him back harder. “Pound for pound she’s probably the physically strongest member of SOLDIER.”

All he’s saying is that she’s probably the smallest.

“Then why’s she still in Third?” Cloud asked.

Cicero pouted. “Don’t give me that.”

“And then this is Alistair.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” the tall one said, looking at the wreckage of the door, and then back at Cloud with a judgemental stare. “Materia support coordinator.”

I don’t even need to explain that one.

Alistair extended his hand for Cloud to shake. “Who are you?”

Cloud was ready this time.

“I’m —” he paused, for effect, tossing back his hair, “Apocalyptis Rapture.”

The Thirds thought about this. Cloud was just about to explain what it meant in case they weren’t familiar with the symbolism when Alistair, who had been standing there with his hand extended, suddenly grinned.

“Of course! You’ve got to be a First Class with a name like that!”

He pushed closer, scrutinising Cloud’s face. Cloud took the opportunity to tilt it this way and that way, showing off his cheekbones.

“Sorry, but I just — I had no idea there were still guys like this in First. Wow.” The glow in his eyes, a bright, new-coin silver, was strengthening. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“If you want,” said Cloud, becoming more reticent. He’d always thought he’d enjoy this kind of attention, but instead he felt like he was waiting for someone to catch him out.

“Have — have you heard of me?”

Cloud shook his head.

“Sorry, I really don’t know anything.”

“Oh,” Alistair said. His face was blank, not even able to muster disappointment. “It’s not like it matters. All the rock stars of the old days are gone, so I suppose I wouldn’t expect you to know — you know it goes both ways, right? I’ve never heard of _you!_ ”

“Settle down, Al, please — he’s just answering your questions. He doesn’t mean anything. Grow up.” Gyel waved Alistair off with a hand. Then he turned towards Cloud. “Sorry, I thought it was obvious you were kidding around, but then the others didn’t get it and I worried that I was wrong.”

“Ah,” said Cloud, with a grin that he hoped wasn’t as nervous as it felt. “Yeah, I was messing with you. The name’s Temple Argent.”

“Okay,” said Gyel. He dropped his visor, and started tapping at the controls — Cloud, realising what Gyel was doing, felt his body go cold.

“You look like you’ve been through it. What were you last up to? Hello, database? Give me all you’ve got on ‘SOLDIER officer, First Class, Argent, Te…’ damn, nothing’s coming up.”

Cloud hestitated. He grabbed his head with a hand, and opened his mouth to blag some explanation, but Alistair interrupted him with an irritated wave of an arm.

“Of course the database is still down, because it always is. Why do we even have an IT department?”

“Yeah, it happens to Firsts too. It’s a pain,” Cloud said, grateful to them for handing this one to him. “Sometimes, you can fix it by taking your helmet off and putting it back on again. Anyway, it’s time to stop messing around and get on with this quickly; I’ve got other places to be.” He turned his body, then looked over his shoulder, trying to look thoughtful and aloof. “Tell me about these Arches. Not that I don’t know anything about them,” he quickly added, “I just want to know how much you do.”

“Right,” said Gyel, lifting his helmet off and thumping it with the heel of his hand. “The Arches are an underground tunnel that was built hundreds of years ago to redirect the flow of the River Mid — it extends around the edge of several Sectors and flows out into a reservoir in Sector 5.”

“Have you ever been where it comes out? I have, it’s quite pretty,” Cicero chipped in. “But everyone knows the woman who lives there is a witch. She puts curses on people who don’t buy her flowers.”

Cloud wondered back and forth as they talked, thinking about the time. It was about now that he would have to start heading back to Len.

“There’s always been tramps and squatters living in the tunnel, but it’s company policy to tolerate that sort of activity so long as they’re not endangering themselves or anyone else,” said Gyel, wedging his helmet back on. “When the redevelopment order came in, we discussed new housing for the residents and gave them notice and means to apply for development funds. There was a bit of upset here and there, but things were going fairly well, until some group of maniacs on the network got together and kicked out the usual inhabitants through force. They were… anarchists? Or primitivists? Is that right, Temple?”

“I thought they were just organised criminals,” said Alistair.

“No, they definitely had some kind of political thing.”

“Terrorists?”

“Potentially. Temple, which one is it?”

Cloud shrugged. Then, in a confident voice, he said, “I heard that there was something about them…”

“…siphoning off the Mako pipes. Yep, and they’ve done a horrible job of it, too.” Gyel threw back his head in an exaggerated sniff. “You can taste the pollution in the air. It’s almost certainly responsible for the monster activity. We have to find the source and turn it off. Though keep it quiet, we aren’t allowed to say much.”

“Of course you’re not,” said Cloud. “What’s the way in?”

“We’re right on top of it.”

Cloud looked down. Underneath all of them, within the boundaries of the railings, was what he’d first assumed was just decorative gravel, but — 

“What is this?” Cloud scooped up a handful of the stones. They weighed heavily in his palm, solid. It seemed like each one had been carved by an intricate eye into a sort of textured, stylised S that Cloud felt sure he recognised from somewhere, but couldn’t place.

“Petrified packing peanuts,” said Alistair, trying to pitch his voice down to sound authoritative. “They must have had a very powerful magic user with them. Even a basic Break spell’s expert-level magic and requires some rare, extensively regulated Materia. Just goes to show what you get from organised crooks these days.” He squatted down and picked one of the pellets up, flicking it at Cicero, who yelped. “You’ve got to admit it’s an ingenious solution. Easy to transport, quick to set up. And there’s nothing we can do about it. If they’d just conjured up a wall of flame like in the old days, that’d be child’s play.”

“We were trying to get hold of a digger from a local to scrape it out,” Cicero said, stalking around Cloud with her hands butterflying at the top of her hips, “but apparently it got stolen by some sort of blood-crazed male prostitute? You didn’t hear anything about that, did you?”

“By a what? No,” said Cloud, genuinely confused. “So what’s wrong with just using spades?”

Gyel laughed. “Forget it. I clock off at five. And we already wasted all morning on phone calls and report-taking at the machine repository. I don’t suppose you’ve got any bright ideas?”

“I usually have something,” said Cloud, thinking. Then he caught the sight of them all, lined up and waiting on his word, listening to him like he was their superior, like he knew what was going on, and fell quiet. He’d done what he’d come to prove. Len needed him. He shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with this one. I have to go soon — I have other things to get on with.”

“What?” Gyel asked, appalled.

“Sorry,” Cloud said. “Someone’s calling me.”

Cloud watched as the Thirds stared between themselves, struggling to respond, then wheeled around with a theatrical arm gesture and began to head off. Faintly, over his shoulder, he heard Cicero’s voice, mumbling at the others, suddenly raise loud enough that he could make out the words — “ _… a dick anyway!_ ”

“Wait,” Gyel called. Cloud turned back.

“What is it?”

“First Class sword,” Gyel said, thoughtfully. Cloud almost felt the force of his stare against him and his blade — he played up to it, raising an eyebrow. “Please, it won’t take long for someone of your level. Can you wait twenty minutes?”

“Hmm,” Cloud said. He stopped. Cicero was wiping her mouth with her hand, looking uncertain; Alistair’s arms were folded defensively; Gyel was watching him with concern. He realised, with a thrill, that this was going even better than he’d hoped — he felt a sudden, mad impulse to push it as far as it could possibly go.

“We could try and do you favours in return. Alistair’s got a really good record with his expenses sheets, haven’t you, Alistair?”

“Gyel, I —”

“I could think about it,” Cloud said, posing. Fooling them was one thing, but being begged for was different. The pleasure, finally overwhelming the terror, was like a first snort of some euphoric and insidious drug, and he desperately wanted more of it. “But I’m on a First’s salary. Try harder.”

“Okay,” said Gyel. He pulled out his phone. “Help us or I’ll call up HQ and grass you up for that door you destroyed when you were showing off.”

Cloud suddenly stopped posing. Gyel still had his boyish smile on his face; from his perspective, it was still playtime, and the worst punishment SOLDIER First Class Temple Argent would face would be having to email an apology to some exec in Urban Improvement and a few extra reps of squats. The best possible outcome for ex-SOLDIER First Class Cloud Strife would be an arrest for impersonating a member of the armed forces.

“Alright,” Cloud said, nodding. “You’ve twisted my arm. But it’s really nothing to do with the money. I’m just not going to sleep tonight if I leave the safety of innocents in the hands of a bunch of Thirds.” He folded his arms, digging the tip of his boot into the pellets. “Let’s start with the obvious suggestion. The monsters are spawning in the Arches, and we know they’re getting out. So —” He broke off, satisfied with his train of logic, and pointed forward at the doors, taking charge — “we’re going into the Mythril Exchange.”

“Ha,” said Cicero, trotting along after him as he began to head towards the Exchange’s boarded-up doors, “you think there’s a way in through there? Buildings aren’t all connected to each other by secret tunnels, like some kind of ant farm. Do you think this is all a video game?”

Cloud raised a hand to cut her off.

“I know you’ve only got Third-rate brains, but just think about it,” he told them all, trusting they were watching. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what a Mythril Exchange is.”

“It used to be a not-very-good nightclub before it got shut down because of the noise levels,” Alistair offered, slouching along after with his hands in his pockets. “I once got slapped by a girl about where you’re standing.”

“When it was first built,” Gyel said, hesitating to shoot a pointed look at Alistair, “it was a commodities exchange trading floor. The miners would come in on a certain day each month and display their metal, and the mydsmiths would buy a portion of the year’s produce. There’d also be deliveries of metal, a farmers’ market, livestock…”

“Right,” Cloud agreed. “And the building was built — in a time before the engine — directly over a channel of running water. Where would those deliveries have come in? Wake up! See how easy it is when you make an effort to use your heads?” He reached the boards and patted them with a hand — they were liberally tattooed with a patchwork of stencilled President Shinras on guillotines. “There’s going to be some kind of dock in there.”

“Do you actually know?” Alistair asked. “I’ve been in there and I don’t remember seeing that.”

Cloud shook his head. “But don’t you trust me?”

He knew it was a monster nest in there, at least. If he was wrong he could probably start a big enough commotion that he could make a break for it through a window.

“Hmm,” Gyel said, stroking the back of his helmet with his hand. “What do you think? Worth a go?”

Alistair and Cicero looked briefly at each other, then towards Gyel.

“I vote no,” Cicero said. “Something about him just…”

“Just what?” Cloud cut in. “Come on, stop wasting my time.”

He drew back and wedged the point of his sword underneath the boards — they chipped and splintered easily under the force. He’d expected the boards to be rotting, but they were merely riddled with obscenely fat woodworm trails.

“You’d better let me at the lock,” Alistair said. “Stand back, I don’t want to mess your hair up.”

Cloud walked back and scratched his head. He had been expecting Alistair to try to pick the lock, but instead Alistair slapped his sword onto his back and spread his hands out, his eyes faded with the memories of his Materia. Cloud’s fringe began to cling to his face with static, and the ring of the huge iron padlock glowed crimson-white from electrical resistance — then the air bit with cold and it was immediately frozen. Then he reached out and snapped it in his hands, as easy as if it were twigs.

“You’re impressed,” Alistair said, “I can tell.”

“Just surprised to see they teach Thirds anything,” Cloud said, moving back into the lead. “Did you learn the prank by doing it on other people’s swords, or were you the victim?” He pushed the door open.


End file.
